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A normal girl living her biggest, messiest dreams.

Get to know me

As seen on

These are my unfiltered adventures, musings and stories.
I talk about birds, coffee and overcoming personal fears too much.

60
ish countries
7
continents
10
odd years
Find me on or or I'll email you!

My recent adventures

Exploring Antarctica from your sofa – an AR journey to the end of the world

Step inside the stories of some of the great polar explorers – from home

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Trapped in paradise – lockdown in New Zealand. Again.

Are we even allowed to complain when we have it so good?

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Slowing down and sustainable travel in the Abel Tasman

Creating a light footprint while traveling is totally possible in New Zealand

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More adventures from the blog

My favorite stories

All the mean, nasty and godawful hateful things people say to me online

Guys, why do people troll on the internet? Why are blogger hate comments ...
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Solo and single in the most romantic place in the world

How glossy and polished is the travel industry today? Well, I suppose it's ...
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A broken robot: the face of a burnout

My whole life I’ve always been told that my face reads like an ...
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More inspirational stories

Where I screwed up big time

That one time I crashed a scooter in Bali

A week ago I found myself upside down in a ditch full of ...
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Getting Naked in Istanbul

**Warning this post borders on the TMI, but I thought it was too ...
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This might be my funniest story of all time

Guys, the funniest thing happened to me the other day. Now, I know I ...
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More confessions
World Map
Roads through Iceland
Iceland
New Zealand Road Trip Part 1
New Zealand Road Trip Part 2
Australia
Spain
Canada
Finland

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Mother of plants @node.nz 🌿 Nature frother & #birdnerd 🐧 Friend of kākāpō and the girl with the whales 🐳 It’s all in my blog ⬇️

Liz Carlson☀️Young Adventuress
The past couple of weeks I’ve been leaning hard The past couple of weeks I’ve been leaning hard into my houseplant alter ego as I head into one year of my new business @node.nz 🪴 . As we emerged out of lockdown on the South Island, we were absolutely inundated, and I’ve been spending long days at NODE running the show and trying to build a system that will last. We’re expanding (in every way) and I’m super excited to see where things go and grow, pun intended. For me, NODE is fundamentally about joy, about nature and a love for things that grow, and about building a life and home that makes you happy. . I’m super proud of what I’ve built and the community I’ve created, everything that grew out of some “what if” conversations. I fall asleep at night with sore shoulders after 16 hour days of potting plants, packing orders, writing content, doing sales, negotiating with suppliers, taking deliveries and planning for the future. It’s beautiful and hard, and I’m really glad I’ve been on the ground doing the hard yards for the first year to truly understand what it means to build a brick and mortar business. . We live in crazy times, and I’m a big advocate for embracing the fear of the unknown and fucking going for it. I’ve had some major oops moments (like an accidental $1K freight bill my first month open) but also some incredible wins too. I’m even coming out of my first year open profitable, which I hear is hard 🤣. Not sure what I’m hoping to achieve with this post except to share that this is for my fellow dreamers. We can do hard things.
I can’t believe it’s almost been two years sin I can’t believe it’s almost been two years since my last trip overseas ❤️ what happens when a travel blogger sits still. My last international trip was a banger, exploring Botswana with @debeersgroup. So lucky to have lived such a big life (so far). Here’s to more adventures in the future!
The rusted, spooky remains of the whaling station The rusted, spooky remains of the whaling station at Stromness on South Georgia is one of the most desolate yet impactful places I’ve ever been to. Ernest Shackleton, one of the most iconic men from the golden age of polar exploration, strolled into Stromness in 1916 after what is the the greatest survival stories of all time after attempting the first land crossing of Antarctica. Spoiler alert - it didn’t go well. . It’s not been that long since Antarctica earned a concrete place on the world map. Since antiquity, people believe that a place called the Terra Australia Incognita (aka a great unknown southern land) must exist. Why? To balance out the landmass in the northern hemisphere. Oh, ancient logic! That’s cute. For centuries explorers looked for this unknown land but never found it. One of the most well-known attempts was by none other than Captain Cook himself on the same voyage when he ended up in New Zealand. While they did head into the Antarctic Circle itself, they never found any land. . Can you even imagine sailing into the unknown like this? With no idea of when and where you might end up? Or even if you might make it home again. Two hundred plus years later, and Antarctica remains elusive in our collective imagination. . My friends at @antarcticheritage look after the historic huts and artifacts left behind by these great explorers. World leaders in cold-climate heritage conservation, they work tirelessly to inspire the spirit of exploration and protect this powerful place and the legacy it contains. They’ve even created a free augmented Reality app you can download that allows you to explore Antarctica and these places from your home. Check out my stories for more details 🤗
Outdoor bath of my dreams at Rockwood Station with Outdoor bath of my dreams at Rockwood Station with @canopycampingescapes in rural Canterbury! Can’t wait to come back here and chill.
Rolling over in bed this morning, I sleepily grab Rolling over in bed this morning, I sleepily grab my phone to turn off the alarm when I see the date. September 11, a day permanently scarred on the minds of every American. My stomach jolts. We will never forget. . 20 years ago today I was sitting in class at my new school. My mom had remarried and we had moved to a new city. Spoiler alert, starting at a new school in a new place at 13 didn’t go well for me. The vibe was weird but in a time before phones, we just carried on as normal. Then a teacher rolled in one of those big bulky TVs, usually reserved for watching @billnye shows on substitute teacher days, into our classroom. We all watched in horror as reels of planes smashing into skyscrapers, our little brains unable to comprehend the enormity of what was happening. We heard the same was happening in DC, just an hour away, and I remember frantically trying to hear if my dad was ok. The world as we knew it changed in an instant. . In my life I’ve had many friends who lost parents and friends on 9/11, and some years later to the toxic air. Firefighter fathers who selflessly climbed burning stairs and never came back down. My heart breaks when I think about them. I think about all those people killed in a retaliatory 20 year war in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one will accuse me of being particularly patriotic, yet I still feel deeply about horrors like this. It’s all just so sad. So very sad. And so preventable. . Perhaps now that I’ve felt the loss of a parent, I have more empathy for collective memories of death and suffering. When my phone dinged this morning with the date, I felt almost physically ill imagining all those who lost someone in such a public and dramatic way. I grieve for them. I grieve for all of us. I know it’s the optimist in me but I hope that as humans we could work on solutions that don’t involve rockets and AK-47’s and hijacked planes or self-destruction. We can’t forget we’re all human #911 #neverforget #september11
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Who is Young Adventuress?

Hi, I'm Liz, and I got my first taste for traveling when I was 16 years old. On my own, 12 years and 50 something countries later, my wanderlust has only grown and the list of countries I want to visit longer. After living in Spain for the past few years and returning home for a stint, I then quit my job and moved to New Zealand and I've been here ever since. Follow my misadventures as I wander, eat, and photograph my way around the world

Get Inspired

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